Best Haircut Ever?

Happy solstice, you pagan bastards. Midwestern Eavesdropping is postponed this week, as there are only 4 submissions.

So I've gone about a week and half too long without getting a haircut. Thus, I decided to get one today after work. I had been led to believe --probably by the government -- that my usual barber shop was open until 7pm every day. Luckily I called at 5:54 to ask, at which time I learned that it closed at 6. Ergo, I made a couple calls to other barber shops. A place on Southport, just south of Fullerton called Mario's was open until 9.

I walk up to Mario's around 7, and the place is packed with dudes, drinking, carousing, and generally carrying on. Apparently it was Customer Appreciation Night. So after a 15-minute wait, while Bob the Barber was finishing someone else, I sat down. Bob immediately asked me what I wanted to drink. Some geriatric named Billy -- who was wearing white pants, a white short-sleeve button-down shirt, a black bowtie, and a hat that indicated he may have been a milkman in the '50s -- was serving up drinks from a table FULL of booze. I relented at first, but on account of my disease, I ordered a scotch on the rocks (because I noticed they had several bottles of pretty good stuff). Billy fixed me up an 8oz Solo cup full of scotch and ice.

Minutes later I found myself in a precarious position: sitting in a barber's chair with an eighth of a haircut, staring at myself in the mirror with a scotch in my left hand and holding clippers in my right while my barber was taking a shot of tequila. A certain level of uneasiness flowed through my body, as you may have expected. Luckily the booze took the edge off.

That shot must have energized Bob because he went at my head Edward Scissorhands style, although his hands were not scissors and he didn't have scurvy. Somehow Bob managed to get through the ordeal without any catastrophes. I learned that drinking scotch (or anything, for that matter) can be a pain in the ass while getting your hair cut, especially when the barber uses a blowdryer to blow all the hair off your shoulders. Right into your cup of scotch. I also learned that Mario's has drinks for its customers all year round. As Bob said, "One guy asked me if we had a liquor license. I told him you don't need a license if you're just giving it away for free." Kinda like the difference between Dutch hookers and Dutch women in general.

Merry Chrismukkah. I love you all.